WELLSBORO, PA. — Four were teenagers. Thirty were 21 or younger. The oldest was 53. They left homes in big cities and small prairie towns and Southern hamlets to answer the call of duty in Iraq, where 103 soldiers, Marines, airmen and seamen died in October -- the war's fourth-deadliest month and the worst since January 2005.
On the final day of October, Sgt. 1st Class Tony L. Knier, who needed his mother's permission to join the Army at 16, returned in a casket to the coarse green hills of central Pennsylvania. His mother was there, and his widow, and dozens of relatives and friends, and stooped veterans who whispered words of comfort in his widow's ear.
The casket was closed. Knier, 31, was killed Oct. 21 by a roadside bomb that fractured his skull. On a day when the American death toll in Iraq stood at 2,813, a few of the mourners came right out and said it: They weren't sure he died for a good cause. But all agreed on what serving in Iraq meant to Tony.
His widow, Bobbi Knier, who first met Tony when she was a 16-year-old cheerleader, said her husband "wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else." She spoke without tears. "My husband," she said. "He's awesome. He's Army."
Among the veterans who counseled Bobbi Knier was Fred Audinwood, 78, a Korean War veteran who lost his older brother in World War II. When he approaches bereaved families now, Audinwood said, he acknowledges that "this war is not understood well."
"My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty," he said. "This death thing is a price we have to pay."
The price has been paid each month since the war began in March 2003. This October was worse than most, the Pentagon said, in part because American troops have been diverted to Baghdad, where Iraqi security forces have failed to control sectarian violence.
Most of October also coincided with Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, a time when insurgents in recent years have tried to intensify attacks. The October total could increase. The Pentagon sometimes delays announcing combat deaths.
There were scenes of finality this week in many towns, where the turned cemetery dirt was still fresh, or where burial ceremonies were being planned inside funeral homes.
In Aurora, Ill., on Monday, American flags held by volunteers snapped in a brisk wind outside San Pablo Lutheran Church as mourners said farewell to Marine sniper Edwardo "Eddy" J. Lopez, 21. Lopez, a lance corporal, had survived duty in Afghanistan but was killed Oct. 19 during combat in the insurgent stronghold of Al Anbar province.
Before he left for Iraq, Lopez had come to the church of his childhood to hear one final service. Afterward, he sought out the Rev. Alex Merlo and asked for his blessing.
"He said: 'If something happens to me, if I die in war, take me back to our church. Make sure I get home,' " Merlo recalled.
The reverend kept his promise. Lopez was back at San Pablo on Monday, inside a flag-draped casket.
In Portland, Ore., a bugler sounded taps and uniformed men fired rifles into the crisp air Monday to honor Staff Sgt. Ronald L. Paulson. A civil affairs officer and Army Reservist, Paulson was killed Oct. 17 by a roadside bomb. He was 53, the oldest American to die in Iraq in October. At Willamette National Cemetery on a hill high above the city, his widow, Beverly Paulson, accepted a folded Stars and Stripes as bagpipes sounded.
Before being recalled to active duty in December 2005, Paulson had spent 14 years working at Gunderson Inc., a company that makes rail cars and barges.
In Apex, N.C., the family of Army Maj. David G. Taylor Jr. filed into a red-brick funeral home Tuesday to plan his services, scheduled for Thursday. Taylor, 37, was the highest-ranking serviceman to die in October. He was killed when a roadside bomb exploded next to his Humvee in Baghdad on Oct. 22 as he trained new arrivals.
Taylor was able to take mid-tour leave to be present when his wife, Michelle, gave birth to the couple's first child, Jacob, now 4 months old. His family asked well-wishers, in lieu of flowers, to thank a soldier, police officer or firefighter for service to the country.
In Rancho Cucamonga, the death of Army Capt. Mark C. Paine left his mother deeply conflicted. Paine, 32, died when a roadside bomb was detonated next to his Humvee on Oct. 15 near Taji, north of Baghdad.
"Am I proud?" Kairyn Paine, 56, asked with a weary sigh. "Yes, of course, but what does this say about our strategy over there?"
Once a staunch supporter of President Bush, Paine said she had undergone "a complete change of heart as I've watched the failed strategy unfold."
Mark Paine was troubled by the way the war has divided the country, she said, but he never questioned his commander-in-chief's strategy.
Roger Paine, 63, called his son a warrior who "died doing exactly what he wanted to do."
